In their critiques of coverage of Biden’s age, then, progressive media scolds are like the dog who caught the car. They succeeded in getting the media to frame the issue gingerly — for every story that engaged forthrightly, there were two that dismissed it as “misinformation”, sometimes even inventing whole new categories like “cheap fakes” to describe what were simply lightly edited but unflattering video clips of Biden.

But having caught the car, the critics aren’t sure what to do with it. Because the car was a lemon. In hunting down bad vibes, the critics didn’t change the underlying reality — they only made the media seem out of touch. “Vibes theory”, the postmodernist strain that began with Rove but has now has a through-line to progressive media critics, fails when it comes to things the public can see with its own eyes, like Biden’s obviously deteriorating condition or the fact that prices are much higher than they were when Biden took office. Instead, the Democratic Party now finds itself in a state of crisis.